By Christiana Ekpa
The House of Representatives committee on drugs and narcotics has pledged to increase the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) 2023 budget estimate to enable it perform optimally.
The committee stated this on Thursday in Abuja when the executive chairman of NDLEA, Brigadier General Buba Marwa (rtd) appeared before it for the agency’s budget defence.
Chairman of the committee, Francis Agbo who noted that NDLEA is understaffed reiterated that the agency needs adequate funding to enable them build their barracks for the safety of its staff considering the risk involved in fighting drug cartels.
Agbo further lamented that the arms being used by NDLEA need to be replaced with modern ones stressing that the arms they currently use are very obsolete.
He however noted that when he visited the agency’s headquarters he could not find a single sniffer dog which ought not to be considering the nature of the job.
In his reaction, Brigadier General Buba Marwa(rtd) corroborated that adequate funding and increase of personnel to 15,000 is required for the agency to carry out its mandate effectively.
According to Brigadier Marwa(rtd), a sniffer dog cost about 15 to 20,000 US Dollar each.
He also noted that arms and ammunition are very critical component for the agency.
“We have worked closely with the Chief of army staff, Chief of defence staff and the defence ministry. They have provided us with more arms. We need more equipped arms to match these drug cartels”, Marwa said.
Members of the committee while commending the NDLEA boss for their fight against illicit drugs in the country charged them to contain the intake of methamphetamine in the eastern part of the country as it is causing serious threat to lives there.
